Tomorrow's hearing crucial

From the AP:

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges scheduled Monday's daylong hearing in Wenatchee to settle a flurry of pretrial motions. His decisions will define the evidence and arguments the Democrats and Republicans can use during the two-week trial scheduled for May 23.

Tomorrow's hearing will indeed be very crucial. The hearing will decide what burden of proof Republicans will have to meet.

The GOP wants to use "proportional analysis" to subtract "illegal" votes from the total based on how the precinct voted. This approach is completely flawed, and we sincerely hope Judge Bridges rejects it.

As the AP story notes, though:

Democrats scornfully call it "speculative attribution," "proportional guessing," "random chance" and, from attorney Kevin Hamilton, "Californication" - because California courts have accepted this method in election challenges.

It is speculation. The felon population is completely different from the population as a whole. It is a mistake to use speculative attribution to determine what the election outcome would have been like if some votes hadn't been counted.

If the judge does allow "speculative attribution", Democrats say they are ready to play the GOP's game and prove them wrong at trial.

It's a lose-lose situation for the GOP. If they lose on "speculative attribution", Rossi's entire court case is dealt a significant legal blow. If the judge decides to allow it, Democrats have the evidence they need to counter what the GOP has come up with, so the GOP loses again.

We'll be following all the developments in the court case tomorrow.